Cher Biography - Birthday, Age and Life Story Cher Biography Cher’s Birthday – May 20, 1946 Place of Birth – El Centro, California As I look upon Cherilyn Sarkisian LaPiere, I see a woman who has led a spectacular life and behind her celebrity status and flawless complexion lies a woman who has experienced a rather eventful past. Better known as Cher, her success in music, movies, television, and on stage has brought her nearly four decades of world recognition. In a career defined as much by dramatic missteps as spectacular recoveries, the chief constant is her seemingly limitless determination. Born in El Centro, California in 1946, Cher was a poor, fatherless child whose eight times-married Mother struggled by on occasional singing gigs and brief movie roles. To Cher this was life and she delighted in watching her mother on stage and living a peaceful life in her family apartment. At sixteen Cher’s dyslexia proved too gruelling and she left school and home to take acting lessons in Los Angeles. To Cher this was a new beginning and the start of a whole new life, she didn’t expect what was to come.

At the age of seventeen, Cher will never forget the time she met a man named Sonny. They met at the renowned Aldo’s Coffee Shop, the place where celebrities used to hang out. At that stage Cher was a nobody, unemployed and desperate for work, on the other hand Sonny had established himself as a celebrity and had many previous appearances on Television. Cher soon became attached to Sonny and she moved in with him. The two lived platonically at first, sharing an apartment but sleeping in twin beds. While Sonny progressed as a star, Cher was kept house bound and it wasn’t until Cher’s mother discovered the arrangement and tried to separate them, that the pair rebelled and proclaimed their love. Cher claims in her current Biography “The First Time”, that Sonny Bono was the ultimate love of her life and that the two remained amicable in personal st ruggles and hardships. Cher said, “What you saw on TV with Sonny and Cher was a good representation of our personal life, always laughing and having fun”. Sonny and Cher hit gold with their single, “I’ve got you babe” and furthered their world-wide success with “The Beat Goes On” and “Baby Don’ t Go”.

It was Sonny and Cher’s far-out look, with wide colourful pants, skimpy tops, shaggy hair and fur vests, which attracted fans. Cher was deemed as a fashion innovator, a role she has continued with, for better or worse, throughout her career. The happy family portrait presented to America and the world was soon breaking down for Cher. She tells how her daughter Chastity, born in 1969 was affected by intense spotlight and that family life was becoming hectic and unstable . On stage Cher was calm, but backstage was turbulent and Cher felt trapped. Cher states in her biography, “The only way I could continue life happily was to split with Sonny and bring our show to a premature end.” She continues, “This devastated our fans, as well as CBS executives, but it had to be done, I was simply, unhappy with my life.” In the end stardom pulled Cher’s marriage down and the media attention on Cher sky rocketed as she dated new men. Cher now knows that she has made many mistakes in her life. “I was stupid” she said in her biography, “Dumb and stupid!”. Cher had agreed to a second season of Sonny and Cher.

Sonny Bono rang Cher constantly to set up a reunion and Cher agreed eventually. Although something was different this time, Cher was married and pregnant to, southern rock great Greg Allman. Intense curiosity sparked huge initial ratings for the new Sonny and Cher Comedy hour, but Cher knew that the show wouldn’t last as ratings dropped every week. Finally in August 1977, after two seasons the show got the ax for good. Cher was still unhappy with her life, she felt tired of what she was doing and wanted more out of life. Her marriage to Allman was a mess as his addictions to booze and heroin ruined their short marriage. By 1979, their marriage was over and Cher was an unemployed 33-year old single mother, yearning for the impossible. A shot in serious films. Her damaged TV image and tabloid troubles were so ingrained, no one in Hollywood wanted her.

Cher’s persistence is evident when she talks about her troubles, “You know, I had to go on, not only for my sake, but for my two children and the well-being of my career.” Cher was not over yet; in fact this would be the start of yet another career swap for the almighty star. She was casted in a movie called ‘Silkwood’ and acted opposite Meryl Streep. Cher tells, “I will never forget the time Silkwood premiered in New York and as soon as my name was mentioned, the audience just laughed. I felt so bad, but you know, you can’t argue with these things, it’s just a natural, organic response from the audience.” The people who down graded Cher would soon regret their viscous attacks, as Cher was soon faced with an Oscar for her performance in “Moonstruck” . By 1987 Cher was in such demand that she found herself in three films at once, “The witches of Eastwick”, “Suspect” and “Moonstruck”. She became a prime target for the paparazzi and her name was spread over every magazine and newspaper.

At 41, after twenty-five years in show biz, Cher was at last on top and with a little help from the surgeon’s knife she remaines one of the most beautiful stars in Hollywood. Cher continued to raise eyebrows throughout her career. Who will ever forget Cher’s rip roaring video clip in the late 80’s? “If I could turn back time” was a huge hit for Cher, dressed in a risque outfit and prancing around on a ship full of young soldiers she made headlines once again. This was the start of a whole new decade for Cher. The nineties. With number one hits flowing from her vein’s Cher was a rock-pop genius. While Cher remained a star, her personal life remained stagnant. Her daughter Chastity announced that she was gay and began campaigning for gay rights. Cher tells “My response to Chastity being Gay was very un-Cher like. I didn’t know what to do and who to turn to, I was devastated! The funny thing is I knew all along that she was gay, I just didn’t want to admit it.” Cher’s current relationship with her daughter is extremely strong and Cher admits she has learned to except her daughter for who she is.

The news of Sonny’s tragic death was one, which sparked much emotion in Cher’s life. “I was in London in January 1998 when I heard the dreaded news. Chastity rang me and brought the news of Sonny’s death. I dropped everything and fled to Heathrow Airport and the media watched my every move. Even though we had been apart for over 24 years I couldn’t ignore the fact that I spent a quarter of my life with this guy.” Cher tells of the day that she learnt of Sonny’s death as if it were only days ago in her biography. Full of remorse during her reconciliatory eulogy at his funeral, Cher praised the man who had been father, partner, friend, and foe , displaying a side of herself the world had never seen. Though hurt by endless criticism that her eulogy was an attention seeking devise to gain attention, Cher continued to mourn openly, paying tribute to Sonny Bono in a sentimental CBS documentary. It had been a period of over 5 years that the world had last heard Cher’s unique voice in an album. Just as she was written off by many in the criticising world of Hollywood, Cher hit back with a slick new disco album called Believe.

This marked yet another upswing in her bumpy career. Although this time Cher had finally found gold. At the age of 53, looking more like a glamorous 20-year-old Cher’s new album is the best selling album of her 35-year recording career. By March 99 she was ruling the American Top 40 and holding the number one spot for a consecutive four weeks. She was now the oldest female ever to hit the top spot and owned the longest Billboard chart span between No. 1’s (65-99) of any pop recording artist. After the release of Cher’s next studio album “Living Proof”, Cher embarked on one of her most successful tours to date, The Farewell Tour. The show itself was a tribute to her near-40-years in show business. It featured vintage performance and video clips from the 1960s onwards, highlighting her successes in music, television, and film, all set amongst an elaborate backdrop and stage set-up, complete with backing band, singers and dancers, including aerial acrobatics. Dates were added, and the tour was extended several times, covering virtually all of the U.S.

and Canada (plus 3 shows in Mexico City), several cities in Europe, as well as the major cities of Australia and New Zealand. Going well past its original cut-off date, it was eventually redubbed the “Never Can Say Goodbye Tour”. In April 2003 The Very Best of Cher, a CD collection of all of her greatest hits spanning her entire career, was released. The album peaked at number four on the Billboard 200 album chart, extending her album chart span to over 38 years. The compilation has been certified double platinum and has sold 3.5 million copies worldwide. On February 7, 2008, Cher, at 61, announced that she had reached a deal to perform 200 shows over three years live at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace Casino in Las Vegas pokies . Her new show, titled Cher at the Colosseum, debuted on May 6, 2008. She is being paid $60 million for her return. The elaborate show includes eighteen dancers, four aerialists and multiple costumes designed by Bob Mackie.

Choreography is directed by Doriana Sanchez who also worked with Cher on her past three major tours. Cher is currently working on a brand new studio album along with two major motion picture films, Burlesque alongside Christina Aguilera and The Drop Out. 2010 is geared to be a major year for Cher with these projects bound to bring her another wave of success and Cher has confirmed a 2014 world tour along with album release in Closer to the Truth September 2013. “What can I say about Cher’s life that hasn’t already been said? A chart topping singer, Television star, Academy award winner, a disco diva, rock’n’roller and a fashion icon. Simultaneously down to earth, an index to everything that is hot and current as well as to what is lasting and timeless. She’s been written off countless times, but she springs back and conquers a new.

Science will probably never be able to tell us who the first person on earth was, but I believe that the last person standing will be Cher.” VN:F [1.9.22_1171] Cher's feelings on daughter's sex change from Chastity into Chas Bono | Daily Mail Online comments Cher has revealed she still can't get used to the fact that her daughter Chastity has had a sex change to become Chas - and revealed she still calls him 'her'. Talking for the first time about the gender realignment of her only daughter, the 64-year-old star said however that her son didn't mind. Chatting to David Letterman on his chat show last night wearing a daring see through top and leggings slashed up the sides, Cher said she and her only daughter had talked about it for years before she finally underwent the surgical procedure.

Confession: Cher wore a daring see-through top and leggings slashed up the sides for rare appearance on the Late Show With David Letterman at the Ed Sullivan theatre in New York She said: 'During the years we have talked about it and I don't really know what made her change her mind - I still haven't got the pre-nouns right, but she says that's not so important - he had changed his mind, she had changed his mind and then it didn't make very much difference. 'But it kept nagging and nagging and one day he said to me, I think I really have to do this.' RELATED ARTICLES Share this article Share The double Oscar winner revealed that she didn't always find it easy to accept that her daughter was transgender either. Cher confessed: 'The day that we talked about it, really talked about it seriously, I said "If you have to do this you just have to do it." No longer 'she': Chas Bono, pictured in Los Angeles earlier this month, officially became a man in May 'I wasn't always able to be quite as calm through the process, but that day I was so calm, and just thought, this is what has to happen.

The singer and double Oscar winning actress said that Chas had first started to talk about being trapped in the wrong body more than a decade ago. Cher explained to Letterman: 'She was a lesbian. She still is. But it's not the same now. She has a beautiful girlfriend. 'But it's not the same thing as being a homosexual, you feel as if you're in the wrong body. 'I was saying to someone the other day, I really like being a woman, I feel so comfortable in my body, and if I woke up and I was in a man's body, I'd think oh my god, I've got to get out of here. 'And that's the way Chas felt, it was never comfortable. He's very comfortable now.' It's in his kiss: Cher greets chatshow host David in a typically understated fashion She added that such a major life change had been made even more difficult for Chas because of who his mother was.

Cher admitted: 'A lot of people have come up to me and said Chas is very brave, because to make this decision with me as your mother, it's difficult, because you're in the limelight, there's no place you're going to hide.' Chas, 41, her daughter with ex husband Sonny Bono, who died in a freak skiing accient in 1998, was originally named Chastity Sun Bono after the film Chastity, which was produced by her father and in which Cher made her movie debut as a bisexual woman. Standing ovation: David was chuffed to land a rare interview with the double Oscar winner She underwent a surgical sex change and legally changed name and gender after a two-year process in in May this year. Cher was on Letterman to talk about her comeback with new movie Burlesque after playing Las Vegas for the past three years. David jokingly got her to confirm rumours about who she'd slept with over the years and read out a list of names of Cher's supposed conquests.

Saucy: Cher revealed the truth behind rumours of who she'd slept with over the years, and though she admitting bedding Tom Cruise, she said she regretting not sleeping with Elvis Presley more Of those he read out, she confessed to sleeping with Tom Cruise, Warren Beatty, Eric Clapton and Gene Simmons, but said it was only an 'almost' with Elvis Presley ('I got nervous') and Marlon Brando, both of whom she regretted turning down. When David then asked her exactly how many men she'd slept with, Cher laughed: 'We're not talking Cleopatra numbers here. You know, the truth is, everyone was more promiscuous than me. I promise you, all my girlfriends, it was the time too. 'I'd been married to Sonny for so long, 11 years, so when I got out, I was excited, but I wasn't quite with it.' Difficult: Cher praised her 'brave' transgender son Chaz for his gender change and explained the process to the chat show host Cher also revealed that she once got mistaken for a Cher impersonator at a gay Jewish wedding.

She giggled: 'I went to the bathroom, and I'm coming out, and this woman goes"Miss! Miss!" and she comes running after me and grabs my hand, and she was like "Can I have your card? 'Cos you are the best that I've ever seen." And I'm so dense, I'm thinking "I don't have a card! I don't carry cards!" Then she looks at me, and says "Oh god, I'm so sorry!" She thought I was a very good Cher impersonator.' Looking good: 64-year-old Cher is making her movie comeback alongside Christina Aquilera in Burlesque, opening in the US next month Her new movie Burlesque meanwhile, which also stars Christina Aquilera, opens November 24 in the US. The film is about a naieve young girl who ventures to Los Angeles and finds her place in a neo-burlesque club run by a former dancer. It also stars Forgetting Sarah Marshall star Kristen Bell and British actor Alan Cumming. It premieres in Los Angeles on Monday at Grauman's Chinese Theatre - where Cher will become one of the Hollywood legends to leave her handprints in the cement outside.

Watch Cher on David Letterman last night below: Bad Subjects: Britney Spears, Victorian Chastity and Brand-name Virginity Britney Spears, Victorian Chastity and Brand-name Virginity Document Actions What separates Lily Bart and Britney Spears, characters who rely on social artifice and public knowledge of their sexual innocence for market value, is largely that Lily did not have a good agent. Joe Lockard Issue #57, October 2001 Virgin Assets In the famous opening sequence of Edith Wharton's 1905 novel House of Mirth, New York man-about-the-city Lawrence Selden encounters Lily Bart, whose decline of fortune the story traces. As he escorts Lily down Madison Avenue, Selden reflects: "Everything about her was at once vigorous and exquisite, at once strong and fine. He had a confused sense that she must have cost a great deal to make, that a great many dull and ugly people must, in some mysterious way, have been sacrificed to produce her.

He was aware that the qualities distinguishing her from the herd of her sex were chiefly external, as though a fine glaze of beauty and fastidiousness had been applied to vulgar clay." Lily's only social assets are her beauty and virginity, which together equal her marriageability. Any wear or damage to these assets harms her value in the marriage market, and both assets are temporary capital that must be exchanged through marriage before time diminishes the value. A charming chastity defines Lily's value, although this desirability is subject to devaluation through imputation and gossip. Selden, a character capable of observation if not much more, notes, "She was so evidently the victim of the civilization which had produced her that the links of her bracelet seemed like manacles chaining her to her fate." The tea that Selden offers Lily in his private bachelor's quarters ultimately contributes to her downfall, since it translates into questions about Lily's wholesomeness and virginity. Lily's tragedy lies in her precipitously declining value on the marriage market in late Victorian America, given that she can neither shed the stigma of dubious chastity nor escape its valuation.

Last year the contemporary market value of chastity was on parade in relation to Britney Spears, whose agents made public that they had received a businessman's private offer of $7.5 million for a first night with the star and her virginity. "It's a disgusting offer," she told a newspaper. "He should go and have a cold shower and leave me alone. It's outrageous how a man like that can offer something that is totally unacceptable." The first question would appear to be why her agents made public this otherwise unknown offer. Publicizing this sort of objectionable private offer apparently served, in the agents' eyes, as a vehicle for both moral communication and image reinforcement. Inasmuch as their star's public chastity represents a critical element of the Britney Spears image, then the immorality of premarital sex became part of a brand message. What separates Lily Bart and Britney Spears, characters who rely on social artifice and public knowledge of their sexual innocence for market value, is largely that Lily did not have a good agent. As an economic phenomenon, Britney Spears epitomizes the lack of importance that music plays in the creation of a successful rock star. She has few musical abilities of which to speak.

To the extent that her work expresses an aesthetic, it is embodied in the lack of distinctiveness in her songs. Each note, each move, has been shaped by a carefully engineered repetition that is designed to invoke other artists' work and operate within a safe conventional musical mainstream. Despite such blatant fabrication at the hands of record companies, Spears represents the cumulative product of faith in oneself as a star, irrespective of reasonable self-cognizance of personal limitations. Her obvious belief in her own complete self-invention as a success story marks Britney as a contemporary Victorian, but her corporate image packagers rely on framing a portrait of struggle from within a graced destiny. From an early age, in this recounting, Britney Spears manifested the combination of perseverance and foreordained success that shaped her success. Using the closing words of Horatio Alger's Struggling Upwards, the message for communication became that she "is indebted for most of [her] good fortune to [her] own good qualities." Her history of obsessive childhood pursuit of stardom, beginning at age six and continuing through a stint with the Disney Mouseketeers, translated into corporate recognition of inevitable public triumph.

The task of corporate advertising thus became to present Britney Spears as a deserving star for whom an ad campaign was only deserved spotlighting. The promotional version of Britney Spears focuses on the autobiography of a performer who, driven by willpower, rose from a six year-old in Kentwood, Louisiana and dairy fair contests to become a pop star on international stages. It offers Britney as a role model for success, particularly for mall-hanging teenage suburban girls. The improbability of the story becomes its selling power: you too can join Britney's transit into stardom — and away from the fate of marriage and childbearing. This escape story implicitly realizes a limited bipolar vision of feminine possibility, along an axis from star above to drudge below. As with Lily Bart, Britney Spears wears the invisible manacles of a false feminine fate and emerges as another "victim of the civilization which had produced her." Her cherished public virginity becomes the manifestation of these social shackles rather than a private assertion of personal self-determination. An ossified social orthodoxy governs here. Britney's autobiography, canonized in her Star Baby Scapbook video, promises fans that they can be happy without stardom and with those three children and a split-level home.

That dream, after all, is what this down-home star really wants herself. Stardom is only a temporary gig before motherhood. Taking her own parents and three-sibling family for an example, Spears declares to fan-dom that three children would be perfect for her too. In the meantime before matrimony and reproduction, her performance career provides Britney with near-limitless disposable income to spare for mall raids on the Gap and Calvin Klein. A brand-name star is known by the brand names she consumes. If there is such a stench of sterility arising from Britney Spears — who interviews as a decently likeable person — her lack of social affect has so far condemned her to a narrow range of expressive possibility. Songs about high school romance predominate because this is the apex of emotional experience, the center of expressive possibility. That same narrowness marks out the perimeters of class privilege available to suburban American whitefolk, a domain where Spears' willing social innocence delimits her fans from listening to a vastly greater emotional range.

Listening to Britney Spears momentarily striving for a blues vocal tremulo in "From the Bottom of My Broken Heart" is to listen to a pathetic iteration of Billie Holliday's emotive capacity in "You Don't Know What Love Is." Beyond the limitation of adopting middle-class blindness as an artistic platform, the problem is that neither Britney Spears nor her fans are innocent. Sexual innocence is an open sham here, and everyone knows it. They may be virgins in a strict sense, but this is a mere technicality that relies on a limited physical definition of virginity. Britney's song lyrics and dance performances are quintessentially anti-virginity. Britney's famous bellybutton, her open-air substitute vulva, is the center of her public sexuality. The costumers dress her up around her navel; the video cameras focus lovingly on it; and Britney herself adds the occasional silver and jade bellybutton ring as tease-ornament. Viewers know what is meant, but the meaning remains deniable. A bellybutton is just a bellybutton and so all remains within a suggestive propriety, one where flesh gets exposed but conservative market demographics have not been abandoned.

That demonstrative bellybutton is a false innocence that speaks its name. Together with her smile and thrust-out breasts, Britney Spears' midriff is a calculated sex substitute: sexual purity meets pure sex. This is a chastity that is not chastity, a performative pretense. Before Britney appeared at a Rock in Rio festival concert this past January she spent three days locked up in the honeymoon suite of a Rio de Janeiro hotel with her boyfriend (and former fellow Mouseketeer), Justin Timberlake of N'Sync. Timberlake, who also espouses a public virginity, emerged together with Spears from the Intercontinental Hotel and both told the press that they spent a chaste get-away together. KFC order-ins and bundling, presumably. This is innocence that protests too much. But as Sam Spade assures Brigid O'Shaughnessy when she dissembles, "Oh, it's all right.

Only it won't be all right if you are actually that innocent." And teasing truth, Britney sings in a recent video, "I'm not that innocent." In contrast to Justin and Britney in Rio, memory of John Lennon and Yoko Ono spending a week in bed in Amsterdam would make Diogenes weep out of nostalgia for candor. By February Britney was on the moral recovery trail, appearing on an MTV program suggestively titled When Sex Goes Pop: Not That Innocent, where her message was that chastity empowers women, and she definitely does not use her sexuality to sell records. Britney's sexual image is no small matter, since she is a performer whose career supports at least hundreds of staff salaries. Some women have pimps: as a brand-name virgin, Britney has managers. Poor management of her sexuality will hurt profitability. Her body is a Temple of Profit rather than a Temple of Chastity. An intact hymen is a sound business decision. Individual sexual free will just is not in the business plan — and the plan is adoration of a star. So public chastity and brand-name virginity become an exercise in what might be called, with a smile, an applied theory of non-use value.

But then, as Marx wonderingly observes in Das Kapital of commodity fetishism, a commodity can indeed be "a mysterious thing." Home Is Where the Hymen Is Societies under stress frequently act to shore and firm up the boundaries defining femininity. This alleged fundamental order serves to categorize propriety and property claims in a changing symbolic hierarchy. The virgin, the 'un-used', the one available for first claim — these are the associations attached to public performance of chastity. A parent who wants assurance of a child's social value and general esteem can take comfort from an exhibition of sexuality that leads nowhere. Appreciative public eyes see the body but cannot touch, at least in public. Realization of that exhibited sexuality must remain private and hidden in order to assure its public value. Virginity is the classic territory of male property claims and attempted possession of women. It is the physiological point of heteromasculinist title claims and insidious demands for a verifiable female 'purity'. Virginity and property share an ideological double harness: self-control is the price of class stability.

Among the Druze women I used to teach and who resentfully conformed to conservative village values from absence of choice, this double harness was absolute and much more blatant than its American form. Young Druze men worked diligently for years building a house in order to have the reward of sex with a virgin bride, and Druze women made sure every detail was complete — down to new towels in the closets — before they and their families agreed to the reward. At least this system had the limited virtue of a certain social honesty, one where the terms of exchange were clear to all parties. In the United States and other Western societies, the demonstrative chastity of Britney Spears speaks more to a fear of lost parental control and less to a direct belief in children-as-property. This is the message of a more western asset-management school of parenting, one where 'reputation' is all and virginity is the essence of a conservative brand-name self. There is also a palpable ideology of hetero-normal demonstration, of a woman saving herself for marriage but being sexy for the boys in the meantime. Given the construction of Britney Spears and her performance image as a corporate property, the overlapping claims of personal virginity and corporate property combine into a disturbing amalgam.

Public celibacy and business advantage co-habit. Here virginity is no longer an issue of individual autonomy and personal choice; it has become an issue of product branding. If Britney Spears has been marketed with an untouchable sexuality, will she still be an authentic Britney Spears if her sexuality is no longer virginal? Where does the brand value disappear if Britney chooses a sex partner, particularly one who does not bear the three glorious sperm who will become those three perfect children? The cultural conservatism of late twentieth-century America provided a political breeding ground for music based on virginity asset management. One Britney biographer cites the wannabe wave of professionally chaste female vocalists, including Christina Aguilera and Jessica Simpson, and writes "This fresh crop of newcomers — consisting mostly of teen talent — offers a refreshing change from the period during the 1990s when grunge, gangsta rap and angst-filled alternative anthems filled the charts." In the '90s, teens apparently were becoming jaded adults, whereas in the hopeful vision of this teen magazine writer and others like her, teens will remain forever-innocent.

In the post-Clinton era, the regimen of desire has changed to re-incorporate a sexual neo-Reaganism. Just Say No has mutated into True Love Waits. Sex education has become abstinence education. Britney Spears has her political-world analog in Jenna Bush, whose good-girl sham as a presidential daughter falls apart anew with each court appearance for underage drinking. The public stage appearances of Jenna and Britney both profess a clean-living morality that is too good, too clean. Their pretenses are thin and linked to purposes beyond their immediate lives. Neither Jenna nor Britney have any real purchase on public credulity; they are party girls and everyone knows it. This is the good-time conservatism of the Days of Dubya, where social proprieties are honored rather than practiced. Girls can party just as wild as Daddy, snort just the same line of coke he did, and look just as pious as he does in church come Sunday morning. To both party and to embrace the Redeemer's cleansing after sinning is an exhibition of consumption and class status.

It is this sanction of elite and class-privileged desire that opens the door for sexual theologians who peddle false forgiveness with terms like "born-again virgins" and "secondary virginity." This is a well-known Christian world that creates an aggressive continuum between sin and guilt, one that tortures the conscience of good people who pursue sexual gratification. Politics based on self-denial and negation of sexual desire seem to lead inexorably towards denial of equal social entitlement by those who have sex and admit it. Any line between social cleanliness and filth, in the end, must be drawn through hypocrisy. When George Bush promised to restore "honor and dignity" to the Oval Office, there was an electorate who understood his message and cast their votes to clean up the sexual filth left in the White House. His subliminal anti-sex campaign theme suggested that by voting for Bush, the American nation too could become a born-again virgin, even if that required deliberate acts of memory erasure and hypocrisy. Now in power, the Bush administration is putting taxpayer money where Monica's mouth used to be, with a $50 million budget allotment for abstinence education. If the George W.

Bush and Britney Spears image-makers have their way, chastity will be the new public lie. This ideology corresponds neatly with the rhetoric of the True Love Waits organization, a Southern Baptist-sponsored group that is one of America's leading 'abstinence educators'. In this old-new world, achievement arrives with the ostensible denial of immediate desire. "The days of virgins being labeled 'old-fashioned' are long gone," according to their website. "There is a new sexual revolution happening; one that promotes responsibility, respect and commitment. Leading the focus on abstinence are many of today's top pop stars. Going against the tide of pop culture, these singers are spreading the message that chastity isn't just acceptable, it's considered cool!" Social confinements, virginity pledges, and TLW pledge rings are being re-packaged in the language of revolution and cultural opposition. It can more accurately be called a counter-revolution that would suppress personal autonomy and free sexual choice in deference to "responsibility", "commitment", and pre-marital chastity. None of this is new.

There is a line of painting and sculpture that begins in the Renaissance bearing the name 'Triumph of Chastity', a topic that commonly features a virginal nymph surmounting her immediate environment. It was a theme that attracted artists like Signorelli, Martini, della Francesca, Perugino and many others. In American art the 'Triumph of Chastity' theme appeared primarily in the work of neo-Romantic sculptors of the mid-to-late Victorian era, like Joel Hart. Where Renaissance iconography usually focused on marriage fidelity, neo-Romantic iconography emphasized a polite bourgeois elevation of the female body and adoration of its transcendent untouchability. Given the near-complete civil disenfranchisement of women, this celebration of female chastity might be more dryly discussed as a property management strategy. When Wharton's virginal protagonist Lily Bart poses for a stage tableau for women, with her similarly "long dryad-like curves" and "noble buoyancy of her attitude", she discovers they ultimately account for nothing: her virginity and beauty prove a false and hollow social protection. The Defeat of Chastity arrives when virginity becomes a means of ownership rather than a free choice of companionship.

Britney Spears talks the talk of chastity triumphant, and then does anything but dance chastity's restrained daisy-chain dance. Instead, she provides an unworkable translation of this Victorian sexual ideology. Every come-take-me move Britney makes says that she learned early what too-proud Lily Bart discovered too late: sex is everything. As her albums and videos spin to their finish, Britney Spears subverts her own official message: she testifies that even while sexual Victorianism persists as an idea, her world has moved on. Joe Lockard is a member of the Bad Subjects Collective. He thanks Joel Schalit and Lauren Berlant for thoughtful comments, and his son David for giving Abba such smiles. Copyright © 2001 by Joe Lockard. Britney Spears cup image: 44 oz. Pepsi cup from 7-11 convenience store, August 2001. Britney chorus line image courtesy Mike Mosher. All rights reserved. Navigation Names Celebrities Give Their Children You are here : home > Baby Names > Related Articles for Baby Name > Names Celebrities Give Their Children Names Celebrities Give Their Children Having a famous parent guarantees fame for a child.

Find out how some celeb parents have gone ahead and made their children's names unusual. What is your first thought when the newspapers announce that a celebrity is going to welcome a new baby into the family? Chances are, you will wonder what the new arrival is going to be named. Nowadays, celebrities have turned baby names into a whole new art. It is not just enough for their children to be known through the world right from birth. These children also wind up getting names that are guaranteed to make them stand out right from day one. Here are some examples of names that have been given to celeb babies. The Normal Ones children unusual names . There is a small section of famous personalities who are quite content to give their newborns regular sounding names. For example, actor Pierce Brosnan (of James Bond fame) and his wife, model Keely Shaye Smith, have named their son Dylan Thomas. Actress Angelina Jolie is another celebrity child. Her father is the famous 70s actor Jon Voight. Many names retain this trend when they grow up and have children of their own. Thus, Angelina Jolie has in turn named her three children Maddox, Zahara, and Shiloh.

The third name is Jewish for peace. Another celebrity family is that headed by veteran actor Kirk Douglas. His son is the famous actor, Michael Douglas. Michael himself has three children, Cameron, Dylan, and Carys, with the latter being a Welsh name. Closer to home, our own Bollywood stars give their children normal names as well. The most famous family is the Kapoors, headed by the legendary Prithviraj Kapoor. His sons were Raj, Shammi, and Shashi, all famous actors and filmmakers in their own right. The grandchildren Rishi, Randhir, Kunal, Karan, Rajiv, Sanjana, etc. too have typical Indian names. Even the fourth generation of Kapoor stars i.e. Kareena, Karisma, Ranbir, etc. have normal names. celebrities is those who choose to give their children only slightly unusual names. These may be regular names with alternate spellings or names that are not very common. For example, actress Gywneth Paltrow is the daughter of the late Bruce Paltrow. She and her husband, musician Chris Robinson, have a daughter Apple, and a son named Moses.

Therefore, the daughter is named for a fruit, while the son is named after a character in the Bible. The Hippy movement was extremely popular in the United States during the sixties and seventies. As a result, many of the children born during these years wound up with unusual names. Singer Cher named her daughter Chastity and her son, Elijah Blue. Popular actor Joaquin Phoenix's first name is Leaf while his siblings are River, Rainbow Joan, and Liberty. In the late nineties, a new trend was started of naming children based on the place where they were conceived. The most famous recipients of such names are the children born to members of the pop group Spice Girls. Mel B or Scary Spice named her daughter Phoenix Chi. Her group mate Victoria Beckham or Posh Spice named her son Brooklyn. Victoria Beckham is married to football star David Beckham, and they have two more sons, Romeo and Cruz. The youngest son's name is actually a Spanish name for a girl. This is because father David was so sure his third child was going to be a girl that he refused to consider any other name. Some celebrities like to give their children distinct names, but want the names to have some special meaning.

Thus arose the trend of combining the names of both parents to come up with a unique baby name. For example, pop star Peter Andre and model Jordan have named their new daughter Princess Tiaamii. The second name is a combination of the two grandmother's names. Peter's mother's name is Thea and Jordan's mother's name is Amy. On the Indian scene, the most well known 'different' name is that of Shah Rukh Khan's son Aryan. However, although the name was rare when the actor chose it for his son, it is one of the most popular names today. It is not uncommon to walk into a kindergarten class and find three or four boys with the same name. Every move that a

Question: Which pop star called one of her children 'Chastity'?
Answer: CHER